What lethal shark control reveals about sustainability — and who we are

Majestic, ancient and endlessly misunderstood, sharks have roamed the world’s oceans for more than 400 million years.

These iconic apex predators are essential architects of healthy marine ecosystems, regulating prey populations and shaping the behaviour of other species to maintain the delicate balance of ocean life. Their presence signals resilient, thriving seas, but their decline reverberates through marine food webs, with consequences for biodiversity, and ultimately, for people.

July saw the opening of Club Med’s first resort in South Africa. The R2.1-billion South Africa Beach and Safari resort, located at Tinley Manor on KwaZulu-Natal’s North Coast, allows visitors to enjoy all this uniquely diverse coastline has to offer. The resort is an undeniable boost to local tourism and the economy, but the development has not been without controversy.

Shark scientists and conservationists have raised the alarm at the proposal to re-install shark nets and drumlines as part of lethal bather protection measures on Tinley Manor Beach. Scoping is currently under way to inform the Environmental Impact Assessment process required for the installation of a system that will resume catching and killing one of South Africa’s most threatened animal groups as part of its daily operations. This raises difficult questions for a development that has been promoted on the strength of its sustainability credentials, including its pursuit of Green Globe certification.

A culling programme

Contrary to popular belief, shark nets are not exclusionary barriers and do not physically separate water-users from what the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board calls “potentially dangerous sharks”. In reality, the nets are only about 200m long and 6m wide, meaning sharks can swim beneath or around them towards the beach (which they do, as demonstrated by the large number of catches on the shoreward side of the nets). Drumlines consist of a large, anchored float from which a baited hook is suspended. Together with nets, they function as offshore fishing gear intended to capture and remove sharks moving through the area. They are, in effect, a culling programme.

Nets and drumlines don’t discriminate. Out of the 2,313 animals caught between 2022 and 2025, only 422 were classified as “target sharks”, being white sharks, tiger sharks and bull sharks (and the capture of any shark is problematic in itself). The remaining 1,891 animals included “harmless” sharks, rays, turtles and marine mammals, many of which are endangered and did not survive.

In total, only 539 animals were released from nets and drumlines during this time – a release rate of about 23%, with actual survival probably lower. Release does not equate to survival, and an animal freed after hours of hooking, entanglement or exhaustion may still die shortly after.

These are not abstract losses, and each animal represents part of a marine ecosystem already under immense pressure.

Uncertain legal footing

A series of shark-related incidents resulted in the first net installation in 1952, due to the perceived risk sharks presented to KZN’s tourism economy. Nearly 75 years later, and despite a significant reduction in shark nets to curtail the environmental costs, the same archaic response is being proposed at Tinley Manor.

However, South Africa’s environmental laws have changed profoundly over those 75 years. Our shift to a constitutional democracy enshrined the right of everyone to an environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being and to have the environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations.

The Supreme Court of Appeal has confirmed that the values in the Constitution dictate a more caring and compassionate attitude towards fellow humans, animals and the environment, and that it is our duty to protect and conserve our biodiversity for the next generation.

The constitutional right is realised through national legislation. The National Environmental Management Act (Nema) requires organs of state (like the Sharks Board) to exercise their functions in line with a set of environmental principles, including applying a “risk-averse and cautious approach” when the consequences of a decision aren’t fully known, and avoiding or minimising ecosystem disturbance and biodiversity loss.

Importantly, the Western Cape high court has confirmed that these principles cannot simply be overridden by socioeconomic considerations. The long-standing tourism-risk justification for lethal shark control is therefore on uncertain legal footing.

The National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act takes this a step further by embedding animal well-being within the very heart of South Africa’s conservation mandate. Following the Constitutional Court’s NSPCA judgment, which recognised that animal welfare and biodiversity conservation are intertwined constitutional values flowing from the environmental right, Nemba was amended to require decision-makers to account for the well-being of animals.

Our law recognises that every animal caught in nets and drumlines, not only so-called “potentially dangerous” sharks, has intrinsic worth as a sentient being capable of suffering. Against this backdrop, a programme that routinely inflicts such prolonged and preventable suffering sits uneasily in our constitutional framework.

False choice between tourism and conservation

Like our legal framework, the public perception of sharks has also shifted since 1952. Shark ecotourism has become a meaningful revenue stream in many coastal economies that once saw sharks as a liability.

A living shark has demonstrable economic value that a dead shark doesn’t. Framing the issue as a choice between tourism and marine life presents a false binary, and section 24 does not require us to choose one over the other. Instead, it requires economic and social development to be pursued in an ecologically sustainable manner, which means development cannot be justified if it is at the expense of the environment.

When the law requires caution

This is where Nema’s precautionary approach – itself giving effect to the environmental right – becomes most relevant. What we know is that nets and drumlines kill large numbers of sharks, rays, turtles and mammals as routine operations. What remains far less certain is whether this cost buys the safety benefit claimed, because the lethal gear is not a barrier, and its presence doesn’t preclude a shark incident.

Where uncertainty exists, the law requires caution. That principle is further reinforced by Nema’s general Duty of Care, which obliges anyone whose activities may cause significant harm to the environment to take reasonable measures to prevent that harm, or where it cannot be avoided, to minimise and remedy it. Lethal gear is not an unavoidable last resort, and alternative non-lethal safety measures have been able to achieve the same objectives elsewhere.

Tinley Manor presents a test of whether this archaic, 1952-era response is repeated, simply because it always has been, or is finally held to the standard our law now demands.

Sustainability cannot mean protecting nature only when it is convenient. Public safety and conservation are not mutually exclusive. This is an opportunity to break a decades-old pattern before it sets a dangerous precedent. It will require the Sharks Board to justify lethal control on the evidence it has, and not the assumptions it has relied on for so many years. DM